Book Smart

How to Develop and Support Successful, Motivated Readers

Anne E. Cunningham, PhD and Jamie Zibulsky, PhD

Walks parents through the major developmental milestones that toddlers and elementary school students experience on the path to becoming independent readers.

Includes more than a dozen activities and strategies sections that provide multiple suggestions for simple and playful ways to build specific reading skills.

Offers guidance on how parents can foster social and emotional development.

Designed as a resource book for parents to refer back to for several years.

A 2014 Mom's Choice Awards® Honoree!

Book Smart

How to Develop and Support Successful, Motivated Readers

Anne E. Cunningham, PhD and Jamie Zibulsky, PhD

Description

Authored by two passionate psychologists and educators, Book Smart: How to Develop and Support Successful, Motivated Readers is a how-to guide rich with stories, lessons, activities, and ideas aimed at supporting reading development and addressing the broad range of interpersonal, social, emotional, and motivational skills that can be fostered by reading with young children. The early chapters in this book will help you get your child ready for school and ready to read, and the later chapters will help you foster your child's lifelong love of reading. Throughout the book, the authors also provide tips for building a special bond with your child through reading together, from giving appropriate praise to modeling persistence. Perhaps most importantly, this book serves
as a guide along the path to raising an independent reader. This journey begins with a discussion of oral language and early reading skills and then moves into early writing attempts, story comprehension, general knowledge development, and social-emotional growth. This book will help parents bring the joy of reading into the home.

Book Smart

How to Develop and Support Successful, Motivated Readers

Anne E. Cunningham, PhD and Jamie Zibulsky, PhD

Table of Contents

Preface Chapter 1: Introduction to Shared Reading: Definitions and Practices Chapter 2: The Role of Oral Language in Reading Development: How Language Skills Lead to Literacy Skills Chapter 3: Emergent Literacy: The Roots of Reading Chapter 4: Learning to Write: How Writing Makes You a Better Reader and Thinker Chapter 5: Story Comprehension Chapter 6: The Effects of Reading Volume: Vocabulary and Knowledge Growth Chapter 7: The Social and Emotional Benefits of Reading Together Chapter 8: Conclusion

A 2014 Mom's Choice Awards® Honoree!

Book Smart

How to Develop and Support Successful, Motivated Readers

Anne E. Cunningham, PhD and Jamie Zibulsky, PhD

Author Information

Anne E. Cunningham is Professor of Cognition and Development at University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Education.

Book Smart

How to Develop and Support Successful, Motivated Readers

Anne E. Cunningham, PhD and Jamie Zibulsky, PhD

Reviews and Awards

Named a Mom's Choice Awards® Honoree in October, 2014.

Foreword Reviews' INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards Finalist , 2014.

"Book Smart is a big, generous treasure trove of information and instruction for parents. Zibulsky and Cunningham are passionate about the life of the mind and about how reading out loud to our children enriches their cognitive development and education, our families, and the entire community. Written in a clear, vivid style, the book is a perfect blend of practical advice and the theoretical and experimental reasons behind it."
-- Paul Harding, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Tinkers

"This isn't a book that you'll read once and then put on a shelf. You'll pick it up and use it at every age and stage your child experiences on the path to reading success."
-- Francie Alexander, Chief Academic Officer, Scholastic Inc.

"Book Smart, by top scholars, offers a reliable and up-to-date summary of what helps children become better readers. The emphasis on the spoken word - on reading aloud to children and on direct spoken interchanges between children and caregivers (unusual in a book on reading) is well established in research, is enormously important, and is especially welcome. Congratulations!"
-- E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Professor Emeritus of Education and Humanities, University of Virginia; Author of The Knowledge Deficit and Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know

"[Book Smart] is a wonderful resource, a book that I read from cover-to-cover. Parents will find the most comprehensive information about reading to date and the crucial skills that are essential for its development. But what distinguishes this book among all the others is that while these authors are pre-eminent in the field of reading, they write with an eye carefully calibrated to their audience... These authors have masterfully unlocked the black box of learning to read in a way that never loses the passion and sheer intelligence they bring to their subject. It is a joy to read and will become a well-worn guide for parents and students of reading."
--Susan B. Neuman, Professor and Chair, Teaching and Learning Department, NYU; Co-Editor, Reading Research Quarterly; former Assistant Secretary of Elementary and Secondary Education in the U.S. Department of Education

"Written in parent-speak, Book Smart morphs the latest findings on reading development into fun activities and advice. Thank you Cunningham and Zibulsky for giving parents the toolkit that will help them raise literate, book-happy kids who learn to savor words and to inhabit new worlds through the printed page. Bravo!"
--Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Stanley and Debra Lefkowitz Professor of Psychology, Temple University

A 2014 Mom's Choice Awards® Honoree!

Book Smart

How to Develop and Support Successful, Motivated Readers

Anne E. Cunningham, PhD and Jamie Zibulsky, PhD

From Our Blog

By Jamie Zibulsky, Anne Cunningham, and Chelsea Schubart
Throughout the process of reading development, it is important to read with your child frequently and to make the experience fun, whether your child is a newborn or thirteen. This may not sound like news to many parents, but the American Academy of Pediatrics is just announcing their new recommendation that parents read with their children daily from infancy on.

By Jamie Zibulsky and Anne E. Cunningham
Being literate involves much more than the ability to sound out the words on a page, but acquiring that skill requires years of development and exposure to the world of words.Â And once children possess the ability to sound out words, read fluently, and comprehend the words on a page, they have limitless opportunities to learn about new concepts, places, and people.

Parents and educators everywhere want to introduce children to the world of reading, but the task of helping a child become an independent reader is increasingly difficult and daunting. How can you create a
love for reading and learning with stories, lessons, and activities while also supporting reading development? Book Smart: How to Develop and Support Successful, Motivated Readers, written by Anne E. Cunningham, PhD and Jamie Zibulsky, PhD, serves as a how-to guide for parents as they navigate through the uncertainties of teaching their children to read.

By Anne Cunningham and Jamie Zibulsky
If you want to help a child get ahead in school and in life, there is no better value you can impart to him or her than a love of reading. The skills that early and avid reading builds are the skills that older readers need in order to make sense of sophisticated and complex texts.

By Jamie Zibulsky
Today is World Teachers' Day. What is World Teachers' Day, you ask? It is 'a day [first celebrated in 1994 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization] devoted to appreciating, assessing, and improving the educators of the world.' This internationally recognized day commemorates teachers around the globe and their commitment to children and learning.